important dates Vladimir Putinhas been in power in Russia for 24 years:
December 31, 1999 — In a surprise address to the nation, President Boris Yeltsin Putin announced his resignation and appointed Putin, who he had appointed prime minister four months earlier, as acting president.
May 7, 2000 — President Putin wins the election with approximately 53% of the vote and is sworn into office for his first four-year term.
May 11, 2000 — Tax police raid the offices of NTV, a popular independent broadcaster known for its critical coverage of the Kremlin. This is the first salvo against prominent independent media that has defined the Putin era.
August 12, 2000 — Submarine Kursk sinks in the Barents Sea with 118 people on board, sparking the first widespread criticism of Putin, who went on vacation early in the crisis and waited five days before accepting offers of aid from the West. It was.
October 23, 2002 — Militants from Russia’s Chechen region take approximately 850 people hostage in a Moscow theater. Three days later, Russian special forces injected an unidentified gas into the theater to end the crisis, killing at least 130 hostages along with the insurgents. President Putin has defended the operation, saying it saved hundreds of lives.
October 25, 2003 — Oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Russia’s richest man and seen as a potential challenger to President Vladimir Putin, is arrested and later sentenced to 10 years in prison for tax evasion and fraud. was sentenced. His oil company was dismantled and most of it was taken over by the state oil company Rosneft. Since then, he has become a rebel figure in exile.
March 14, 2004 — President Putin is elected for a second term as president.
September 1, 2004 — Islamic extremists seize a school in the southern city of Beslan, killing more than 300 people in chaotic explosions and gunfire, ending the siege two days later. President Putin has accused regional leaders of incompetence and announced that governors will be appointed rather than elected.
April 25, 2005 — President Putin describes the collapse of the Soviet Union as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of this century,” alarming international observers.
February 10, 2007 — In a speech at a conference in Munich, President Putin radically turns away from previous attempts to develop closer ties with the United States.
May 8, 2008 — President Putin, who is prohibited by the constitution from running for a third consecutive term, is appointed prime minister by new president Dmitry Medvedev, but remains Russia’s de facto political leader.
August 8-12, 2008 — Russia fights a short war with Georgia and gains full control of the separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
March 4, 2012 — President Putin is elected as the new president, and his term of office is extended to six years under constitutional reforms he engineered. Protests by tens of thousands of people before his vote and on the eve of his inauguration led to legislation that increases penalties for unauthorized political protests.
June 6, 2013 — President Putin announces on state television that he is divorcing his wife Lyudmila.
February 7, 2014 — President Putin opens the Winter Olympics in Sochi. This is an expensive prestige project in which he contributed to Russia’s victory.
March 18, 2014 — Moscow annexes Crimea after the Kremlin sends troops without insignia in response to the ouster of Ukraine’s pro-Russian president amid protests in Kiev. A quick referendum will be held on the peninsula separating from Ukraine. Putin admitted a year later that he had been planning the annexation weeks in advance.
April 2014 — Fighting begins in eastern Ukraine between the Ukrainian military and Russian-backed separatist rebels.
February 27, 2015 — Boris Nemtsov, a top figure in Russia’s embattled political opposition, is shot to death on a bridge next to the Kremlin. Nemtsov was working on a report on Russian soldiers in eastern Ukraine.
September 30, 2015 — Russia launches airstrikes in Syria, which President Putin says are necessary to destroy terrorist organizations. The move helps Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a longtime ally, maintain power.
May 15, 2018 — President Putin opens an 18-kilometer (12-mile) bridge from Russia to Crimea, cementing Moscow’s annexation. The bridge later became a target of attack during the war with Ukraine.
July 16, 2018 — President Putin and President Donald Trump meet at a summit in Helsinki, where President Trump addresses allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election that brought him to power. asked a question. He dismissed the allegations, saying Putin was “very strong and forceful in his denials.”
July 1, 2020 – A referendum approves constitutional reforms proposed by President Putin, allowing him to run for a second term starting in 2024.
August 20, 2020 — Opposition leader Alexei Navalny falls seriously ill while organizing a political opposition to President Putin in Siberia and is then flown to Germany, where he is diagnosed with nerve agent poisoning. . Navalny has blamed the Kremlin, which denies it.
December 22, 2020 — President Putin signs a bill granting lifetime immunity to former presidents.
January 17, 2021 — Navalny is arrested at a Moscow airport after returning from Germany. He was later convicted of several charges and sentenced to 19 years in prison.
July 2021 — President Putin publishes an article declaring the “historic unity” of Russia and Ukraine, an ideological precursor to the invasion of Moscow.
February 24, 2022 — The invasion of Ukraine begins, which President Putin describes as a “special military operation” necessary for Russia’s security.
March 4, 2022 — President Putin signs a law that calls for up to 15 years in prison for spreading false or defamatory information about the military.
September 30, 2023 — The International Criminal Court indicts President Putin for war crimes, accusing him of illegally deporting and transferring children from a war zone in Ukraine to Russia.
June 23, 2023 — Evgeny Prigozhin, a mercenary leader who accused the authorities of denying ammunition and support to his fighters in Ukraine, rebels and forces his troops to seize control of Russia’s Southern Command and move into Moscow. Head towards. Although the uprising ends the next day, Putin’s image of power is tarnished. Prigozhin died in a mysterious plane crash just two months after the uprising.